Amanda Weller

Alumna: Middle School Education 鈥16

Amanda Weller

While some parents and educators may call middle school the 鈥渕essy middle,鈥 Amanda Weller would not want to teach any other age group. 鈥淢iddle schoolers are such fun kids with so much personality and curiosity,鈥 says Weller. 鈥淲hen they get interested in a topic, they just want to keep learning.鈥

Weller, who teaches social studies and science at , credits 91影视破解版 Assistant Professor Asli Sezen-Barrie with motivating her in a science teacher education course. 鈥淪he got me involved in an all-day event on climate literacy and creationism,鈥 says Weller. 鈥淚t was a very politically charged topic that I knew very little about at the time.鈥

鈥 I鈥檝e learned a lot of practical activities that give students hands-on experiences. 鈥

Amanda Weller

Weller joined nearly a dozen Towson University students to learn more about teaching climate in the classroom and creating a 5E lesson plan on the carbon footprint through the program. 鈥淭he 5Es 鈥 explain, elaborate, explore, evaluate, extend represent the next generation science standard and serve as a guide for teaching,鈥 she adds.

At Towson University she learned ways to engage middle schoolers, such as Humpty Dumpty 2.0 in which students devise ways to keep Humpty from falling off the wall.

鈥淚鈥檝e learned a lot of practical activities that give students hands-on experiences. It鈥檚 great to teach them how to learn from their failures as well as their successes.鈥

Weller enjoys all the activities as well. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 think of teaching as work because it is so much fun for me,鈥 she says. Still she admits that teaching middle school requires every ounce of her energy.